Marek

Email good, postcard bad!

I think that has little to do with photorealism and more to do with dramatic realism, i.e. you believe what is happening on the screen because it is presented in such a way that a real cameraman might have been there filming it. The rocket launcher example also relates to dramatic realism (for lack of a better term).

Which of the 10+ topics being discussed here are you referring to?

Yeah it looks okay. I mean, it's not offensive, and it works. But a mere 5 years later from its release, you can no longer sell that as "photorealistic" and be taken serious.

HOLD IT! (I say that in a loving, Phoenix Wrightesque way.) Stylized does not equal non-serious. If you look at those comic book sequences in Max Payne, with those photoshop filters that make the photos look painted (well, sort of), you can imagine different styles of in-game graphics that could have worked with the concept that are way more extreme than what they went with. See Sin City for an example in movies of super stylized graphics in a hardboiled/noir setting. I do agree with your first more general point, that realism does sometimes have its uses. I'm more inclined to think of simulation and sports games and such though.

Most of this was already reported, but Wired is the first to write a long feature article combining all the details. It's pretty bizarre.

I'm by no means an expert on interviewing (in that I have yet to switch jobs) but I'm inclined to say no, don't send a note.

Strangely it's my favorite feel-good movie ever. I pop it in whenever I'm feeling down. The best scenes still haven't lost any impact since my second viewing, which is pretty amazing really.

I don't think the Xbox team was ever particularly suspicious, even going back to the Xbox 1. They had to work very hard to cast off the ballast of Micr0$haft!!11's reputation in the PC arena. I didn't find them sympathetic at first either, but guys like Ed Fries and Seamus Blackley were totally awesome.

Yeah, I know what you mean. While I have never met Scarlett Johansson, if you google for some images you can tell she's an average looking girl. Basically the one thing that's super attractive about her is that she played a ridiculously cute and sexy character in Lost in Translation. Oh man, Lost in Translation. What a movie. I mean... GEARS OF WAR!!!

Photorealistic games only seem that way when they are released, but a few years later the photorealism breaks apart when compared to the latest advances in 3D graphics, and the only thing that can keep it from looking super dated is the art direction. Photosourced Max Payne looks laughable now (look at those hands! etc.)...

I will shoot the leaves off the trees. I will shoot more leaves than perhaps I should, so that some animals will get up and they will find no leaves. And then some animals will die. (Sorry. Eddie Izzard still stuck in my head.)

You don't have to be registered for new torrents, just for old ones I believe. But, yep, I'm registered. I can decide what I want to download and what not. Just saw the preview and ohmygod. Montage = sex. I was glued to the screen. Bring on the rest of the episode!

Where? Where? Where? Can't find it on Pulse! Edit: http://video.scifi.com/v/?linkId=34547&sender=gougef@gmail.com&name=Frankie+Gouge Ah. But not available for me. Fuckkk Edit edit: Nevermind! Hooray! http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/482609/6586695/

I will buy anything that is compared favorably to Scarlett Johansson!!!

This is a good discussion and I thought exactly the same when I saw that at Eurogamer. But let's not forget that taking photographs or video also requires art direction, at least if you want to do it properly. Even though cameras produce "photorealistic" images, the way they are framed, lit and shot are extremely subjective. So... it's a good, but not perfect, metaphor for games.

http://www.patrickcurry.com/trivia/ 20 points (.800). You?

Okay, I played it. It's great. The atmosphere almost makes me feel guilty for everything I do. It's a very narrow strategy game, very basic, almost like another indie strategy game Oasis, and I'm liking it a lot. Not something that will keep you up at night for months, but great for playing a couple of weeks. At $10/$15 that's just perfect.

Can't remember that intro anymore. But other than the long montages there are probably a dozen episodes or-so that had shorter ones (often without any dialog) that set the stage really well. They often just cross-cut between two or three related things happening in the fleet instead of doing the standard "cap'n, we bumped into a problem!" opening of most scifi. I am particularly fond of the intros that are metaphorical, like one of Baltar's dream, or when Apollo was floating in space / drowning in water. ANYWAY... I have watched Carnivale, and could tell that it's probably quite good, but couldn't get into it. One of those "personal preference" kind of things.

Ah I see The Wire is an HBO show. I have had nothing but good experiences with HBO shows so I will check it out asap. (I recently bought the Curb Your Enthusiasm s1 DVD without knowing anything about it and didn't regret it one bit.) That analysis of Sorkin's work is really spot-on by the way. It's very harsh, particularly on post-9/11 West Wing, but it's true. I'm always turned off by the melodramatic endencies of his shows and every episode being a sort of parable. But the reason I watch them is to see characters who love their jobs and Do Things That Matter. It makes for great escapism. Secretly I want to be a showrunner who is called up before the weekend to take over a show because he's the only person who can and then walk into the studio and have a billion people circling around like busy bees waiting for your input and then you say something inspiring and yell "ALRIGHT LET'S DO IT PEOPLE" and then people cheer and oh man they deliver the best work possible while telling each other witty jokes and they are all awesome and aren't we a great team. The people in Sorkin's shows seem to have the most stressful jobs in the universe though. It's justified in the case of the West Wing, but it kind of creates an odd microcosm for his other two shows. They're these fantasy workplaces that everyone would want to work at but would also hate eventually.

More likely the opposite. Developers tend to create games for the least advanced console and then scale up. Look at how Xbox and Gamecube were way more powerful than PS2 last gen, but the quality of a lot of Xbox and Gamecube titles suffered because they were being cross-developed for PS2.Also (only saying this as a matter of fact) the reason San Andreas barely fit on a DVD (as far as I am aware) is that a lot of information is repeated on it many times. That's required for streaming content easily from the disc, i.e. the less the drive has to skip around the faster the stream of data.

Yeah Studio 60 seconded. It's nice. The Wire is not really on my radar. I might check it out.

I'm going to start playing this on Monday. At work. As research. I just wanted to drop that in there. (My job is incredible.)

Well to be fair, Bluray could have an impact on games, the same way the modern GTA would not be possible without streaming content from DVDs. However, looking at the complete arsenal of technical advances available, Bluray seems one that will have the least true benefits for games. Yes, the early years of CD-ROM were a festival of shovelware, and it also killed early successes in digital distribution (read: shareware). But DVD did not have the same negative effect, and I doubt Bluray would either, especially in this multiplatform/broadband era.

I recommend you watch the actual announcement, because that is in fact not what Jackson meant. I'm still not sure what he really said, as it was really confusing and ineloquent. But it's close to what the BBC is quoting.